Home / News & Publications / Michigan Catholic News / 2008 / Parish nurses bring health services, with CSA help
Parish nurses bring health services, with CSA help
by Robert Delaney of The Michigan Catholic
Published April 18, 2008
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Robert Delaney | The Michigan Catholic
A blood pressure check is one service parish nurses offer. |
Detroit — The benefits of a parish nursing program can be as broad as improved overall health awareness or as specific as helping a parishioner receive needed care in time to save a life or prevent serious consequences.
In parishes that have them, parish nurses set up health screenings, work with other parish ministries to promote health, and often make visits to parishioners who are homebound or in hospitals or nursing facilities.
Jane Cheyne, R.N., parish nurse at St. Basil the Great Parish in Eastpointe for the past four years, tells of a parishioner who came in for a routine blood pressure screening and fell on his way out. At the hospital it was found he had experienced a minor stroke. Quick action had kept him from "suffering from a major stroke, which could have resulted in paralysis," Cheyne says.
Parish nurses are also a resource for parishioners to call upon as they near the end of life. Another St. Basil parishioner, a man in his mid-40s with end-stage cancer, sent his caregiver to the parish late one afternoon to ask for the parish nurse, Cheyne recounts.
She sent a priest to visit so the man was able to make his confession, receive Communion and the sacrament of anointing that evening, and she mobilized a hospice organization to ease his final days starting the very next morning. The man died three days later, she says.
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Robert Delaney | The Michigan Catholic
Sr. Pat Altermatt, CSJ, R.N., administers a blood pressure test. |
Parish nursing is among the ministries assisted by money raised through the Catholic Services Appeal, the annual campaign that will kick off the weekend of May 3-4 in parishes throughout the Archdiocese of Detroit.
In fact, the CSA funds most of the ministries of the Archdiocese of Detroit, including Sacred Heart Major Seminary, the archdiocesan departments of Education and Parish Life and Services, the Metropolitan Tribunal, campus ministry and hospital chaplaincies, the CTND Catholic cable TV channel and The Michigan Catholic.
Most parish nursing programs are connected to one of the major regional hospital systems – such as St. John Health, Trinity Health or Oakwood – but they also receive assistance from the archdiocese.
Using CSA dollars, the archdiocese sponsors the Parish Nurse Advisory Council, provides tuition assistance for the continuing education a registered nurse needs to become a parish nurse, sponsors the annual parish nurses retreat in the fall, and holds "in-service" educational days from time to time.
An example of the latter was the April 8 visit of Jesuit Fr. Myles Sheehan, M.D. to Sacred Heart Major Seminary, where he spoke about end-of-life issues to parish nurses and hospital chaplains in the morning and to priests and deacons in the afternoon.
Mercy Sr. Judy Mouch, R.N. teaches nursing at the University of Detroit Mercy, including the program for parish nursing, and also serves as a volunteer on the health ministry team at Gesu Parish in the neighborhood just north of UDM's McNichols campus. She says the origins of what we call parish nursing can be found in the care that the earliest Christians had for each other, but its modern form took shape in the 1980s. As parish nurse at St. Luke Parish on Detroit's west side from 1983-99, Sr. Mouch was one of the pioneer parish nurses in Michigan.
Locally, the St. John Health System and Mercy Health Services (now Trinity Health) "were the first organizations to help people understand the relation between faith and health," Sr. Mouch says.
Besides parish programs, many parish nurses do make home visits, where they take the Eucharist and pray with the homebound, and might also make visits to people in hospitals or extended-care facilities, she continues. But they are not there to change dressings, administer medications or otherwise take the place of home-visit nurses or those on the staff of institutions.
"We do not do hands-on nursing, but we do health promotion and education, counseling, referrals and advocacy, and we incorporate spiritual care into our nursing care," she explains.
For people approaching the end of their life, a parish nurse can help explain what will be happening to them, and help them understand that the Church is there for them in this time, to provide comfort and support.
A parish nurse might help a person reconnect with his or her family during that time, and "help them come to terms with their relationship with God," she says.
The annual parish nurses retreat at St. John's Center in Plymouth Township draws as many as 135 parish nurses from around the archdiocese, and provides an opportunity for them "to come together and pray, and have an opportunity to develop their inner spiritual life — and without the archdiocesan support, we could not do it," Sr. Mouch adds.
Most parish nurses in the archdiocese are volunteers, and either hold other full-time nursing jobs or are retired.
Maureen Duncan, R.N., who serves at St. Augustine Parish, Richmond, and St. Mary Parish, St. Clair, is one of the few full-time paid parish nurses in the archdiocese. She works for St. John Health System, for which she is also one of the coordinators for volunteer parish nurses connected with the system.
One of the services parish nurses provide is assisting parishioners to "navigate the health care system," often advising them on available services about which they might inquire.
But there is always attention to a person's spiritual and emotional needs, not just their physical needs. "Maybe I'm going to visit someone who is just coming out of the hospital, but because I'm a Catholic nurse, I can also bring Communion," she says. Duncan also works with her parishes' worship coordinators to coach parishioners who take Communion to the homebound about things to be on the lookout for that a parish nurse might be able to help with, and to ask whether a parish nurse visit would be welcome.
Duncan says a Lutheran minister in Chicago, the late Rev. Granger Westberg, was the "founding father of parish nursing," but she sees it rooted in the ministry of Christ.
"It's a wholistic approach. What did Jesus do on Earth? He taught and healed," she says, adding, "Only Jesus can do the healing, but we can assist."
Sr. Pat Altermatt, CSJ, R.N., says she likes how she is able to help people in a variety of ways in her work as a parish nurse at St. Raymond and Our Lady of Good Counsel parishes in northeast Detroit.
"There are no boundaries, like you can't talk about religion or this or that" that would be banned in a secular position, she says.
Catherine Stock, R.N., parish nursing program coordinator with Oakwood Health Care System and one of two volunteer parish nurses at Sacred Heart Parish on Grosse Ile, says the sponsoring health care organizations provide significant assistance to parish programs.
Oakwood, for example, provides start-up materials such as blood-pressure cuffs and books and pamphlets, and speakers for health fairs, "plus they have me as an on-going resource," she says.
Stock says parish nurses often provide not only advice about personal health, but help people gain a better understanding of insurance matters and what resources they can access.
And "just being a person who brings the Eucharist and visits with them can be a big help to people," she continues.
Stock says her work in parish nursing has been "the most rewarding work I've had in my life."
"It involves my nursing profession and my faith – how much more can you ask for?"
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